Professional Association | Education

How AAEP Used Ollie to Serve 9,000+ Members

4,600+

Conversations

97-98%

Content Coverage

2,880+

Users

Multi

Languages

9,000+

Members Served

The Challenge

The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) represents more than 9,000 equine veterinarians and veterinary students and sits on a deep library of clinical guidelines, scientific papers, position statements, and decades of convention proceedings. The problem was not a lack of content. It was access.

With 15,000+ unique website visitors a month, two very different audiences were trying to find answers in the same place. Veterinarians needed fast, reliable clinical guidance. Horse owners and the public needed plain-language help. Traditional site search returned links and left people to dig. AAEP wanted something that could complement site search and actually answer the question, while still protecting members-only content.

The Solution

AAEP partnered with Betty to launch Ollie (“Ask Ollie”) in August 2025, an AI knowledge assistant grounded in AAEP's trusted content. Rather than build one generic bot, AAEP mirrored the access model already built into their website: a public-facing Ollie for open content and a member-login Ollie for the full clinical library.

Ollie respects each resource's open-access vs members-only designation, so the same assistant serves horse owners and the public without ever exposing proprietary member content. Open resources like vaccination guidelines stay available to everyone; convention proceedings and clinical papers stay behind the member login. Every public answer invites the user to log in or join AAEP for the full scope.

Key Elements of Success

Dual-instance architecture. Public and member versions mirror the website's existing access rules, so Ollie reinforces membership value instead of giving it away.
Trusted, grounded answers. Ollie answers from AAEP's own guidelines, papers, and position statements, supporting AAEP's #1 priority: give correct information.
A real launch, not a quiet release. AAEP promoted Ollie from August through December, including an animated “talking Ollie” video at their annual convention, plus an on-site banner and consistent member communications.
Built-in conversion prompts. Public answers consistently invite non-members to log in or join AAEP for full access.
4,600+ conversations and 2,880+ users across the public and member instances since launch.
97–98% content coverage, meaning Ollie can answer the overwhelming majority of questions directly from AAEP content.
Members return and ask multiple follow-up questions, refining and going deeper rather than bouncing after one answer.
Public users (horse owners and prospects) ask quick, practical questions, vaccination protocols, parasite control, treating a condition, or validating what their vet advised, and frequently ask about membership.
Members (vets and students) go deep on clinical and practice-management topics like PPID/Cushings, HYPP, PSSM2, colic management, and foal care, and even use Ollie to draft client-education content.
AAEP's most-accessed open resource is its vaccination guidelines; on the member side, the updated internal parasite control guidelines lead, signaling exactly what the field is searching for.
Driving continued adoption across the membership and the public.
Better serving international members by promoting Ollie's multilingual ability (non-English questions are already appearing).
Using Ollie's usage data to close content gaps and guide programming.

The Results

In its first months live, Ollie became a genuinely used resource across both audiences, and a clear window into what AAEP's community actually needs.

Strong, sustained adoption

Two audiences, two clear behaviors

A content strategy engine

Ollie doubles as a “canary in the coal mine.” When it can't fully answer something, AAEP sees a content gap to fill. Usage patterns now inform both member programming and public content decisions, and validate that the right information is live and findable on the site.

Ollie is like our canary in the coal mine. If it can't answer something, that tells us exactly where we have a content gap to fill. It's been incredibly useful for guiding both our member programming and our public content.

Sally J. Baker, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, AAEP

Looking Ahead

AAEP's focus over the next year is growth in utilization and stronger content discoverability.

Driving continued adoption across the membership and the public.
Better serving international members by promoting Ollie's multilingual ability (non-English questions are already appearing).
Using Ollie's usage data to close content gaps and guide programming.